Background
Netiva ("Tiva") Ben-Yehuda was born in Tel Aviv, in Mandate Palestine, on 26 July 1928. Her father was Baruch Ben-Yehuda, director-general of the first Israeli ministry of education.
Netiva studied at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem.
At the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Netiva studied Jewish philosophy.
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Netiva ("Tiva") Ben-Yehuda was born in Tel Aviv, in Mandate Palestine, on 26 July 1928. Her father was Baruch Ben-Yehuda, director-general of the first Israeli ministry of education.
Netiva studied at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem and Jewish philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
In 1946, when she was only eighteen Netiva Ben-Yehuda enlisted in the Palmach, an underground military organization. She trained in demolition and bomb disposal as well as in topography and scouting and commanded a sapper unit. She also trained recruits, transferred ammunition, and escorted convoys. Ben-Yehuda related her military experiences in three autobiographical works, thinly disguised as novels, which deal with some of the lighter moments of the Israeli War of Independence and reflect her exceptionally witty and controversial personality.
Despite the Palmach's opposition to women fighting at the front, as a commander Ben-Yehuda participated in several battles performing sabotage operations. On February 11, 1948, she took part in a mission under fire that had a tremendous effect on her psychologically. She and her comrades set a mine to detonate a bus-load of Arabs. Thirty were killed. The ambush itself lasted merely seven minutes but the preparations took nearly four hours. In an extraordinary exposition of the events, Ben-Yehuda revealed her ambiguity toward warfare. Just before the operation started she had panicked and for a while had to be dragged on by a friend: "My heart was going to burst. I could not breathe. My legs would not carry me...I just felt like sitting there on the spot...pounding temples...and I saw something like a red veil while the veins in my eyes were popping brightly." By the time they reached the ambush site, she was physically and emotionally drained. In a letter to her father, Ben-Yehuda admitted that she did not feel any pride in the success of this military operation. According to her account, she performed what was expected of her as a soldier but in fact caused death and injury to living individuals with her own hands.
Quotations: On the subject of the Palmach: "I don"t think that there has ever been any other underground movement in the world in which "male chauvinism" triumphed so powerfully and so proudly".
In addition to her talent as an artist, Netiva was also a promising athlete whose main forte was discus throwing. She had been considered a candidate for the Olympic team, but her career as an athlete was stopped by a bullet in the arm that caused her permanent injury.
Quotes from others about the person
"She was a woman of certain contradictions" - Yitzhak Tishler, one of her contemporaries.
"She passed a platoon commander course, but in one of her first active missions in the Galilee, she oversaw the bombing of a bus filled with civilians near Kiryat Shmona. After that, it took a toll on her health, psychologically. She never reconciled the attack on civilians. She was against acting unethically." - Tishler
In 1950, Ben-Yehuda married and gave birth to a daughter, Amal, in 1953. Nativa and her husband separated in 1962 and later divorced.